


the dog days of summer

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Series: all your love and your longing [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 18:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20030359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: fataldrum prompted me to talk about a Tim/Martin fic where nothing bad happens, and lo...





	the dog days of summer

**Author's Note:**

> fataldrum prompted me to talk about a Tim/Martin fic where nothing bad happens, and lo...

Martin starts crying while sat at a table in the Queen Elizabeth Hall—because it’s close to the Stamford Street dormitory, and it has free wifi, and he’s under no obligation to purchase anything to use the table, and honestly he’s not the only person who doesn’t look well. There’s someone who might be on drugs a few tables down, and a homeless man charging his phone a little ways across the room, so–really, who’s going to notice an exhausted seventeen year old having a bit of a breakdown? 

It’s a bad day. Well, honestly–a bad day in the middle of a bad week in the middle of a very, very bad year. 

Martin’s been sleeping on his friend Oliver’s floor for three weeks, in the very dormitory he’d been assigned to, back before he realized that the first deposit he’d be expected to make to King’s College would in fact have to go to his mother’s hospital bills, and there wasn’t any more where that came from. It was stupid of him to have studied at all, honestly, because what use were his A-levels when he’d stupidly volunteered at the local library during school instead of getting a summer job and building up his CV? Oliver is getting increasingly tired of seeing Martin on his floor, and Martin desperately wants to stop being a burden, but unless he gets a job he’s going to be stranded in London and they’re going to turn off his mum’s electricity and it’s still _ summer  _ and she’s so heat sensitive and what happens next will all be Martin’s fault for thinking he could do something as useless as study literature for four years. 

This is the twelfth rejection Martin’s gotten this week. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. 

A little motion catches his eye, and he realizes a little spider has clambered up onto the table, and is swiftly bobbling towards his laptop. 

Martin looks back at the opened jobs site, and at the posting for yet another job he’s not qualified for–a research assistant at some institute he’s never heard of–and he’s just about to click it when he hears his name. 

“Martin?” 

Martin looks up, already embarrassed. It’s a guy he vaguely recognizes as one of Oliver’s new uni friends, although he can’t remember his name. He’s the kind of fit that means Martin wouldn’t normally bother talking to him anyway, on the grounds that guys like that don’t tend to be very interested in Martin, conversationally. Martin’s seen him at the pub with Oliver a few times, which is always awkward because Martin’s been trying to save money so hasn’t really been drinking. Anyway, he’s still technically underage. He might be….Tom? 

“Oliver’s friend, right?” Maybe-Tom says, giving him a charming smile and dropping his book on the table. “Tim, in case you didn’t remember. Okay if I sit?” 

“Um,” Martin says, not wanting to talk to a stranger much at all, but Tim’s already sitting. 

“This is your first year, right?” Tim says kindly. He’s got a leather messenger bag, and a coffee from the overpriced cafe down by the book market. Martin tries not to hate him.

“Oh, um, I’m not actually a student,” Martin says, trying to discreetly scrub at his face and wishing Tim would just leave him alone. 

“Cool,” Tim says, not taking the hint but politely looking away. “Cool. But it’s your first year in London, right?” 

Martin laughs hollowly. “If I can find a job, sure. If not, I guess it’s my….sad weird London holiday?” 

“Ah,” Tim says. “Job market got you down?” 

“You could say that.” Martin closes his eyes for a second, and wonders if Tim will leave if he just starts crying again. 

But when he opens his eyes Tim is still there, and looking at him again. “Look,” Tim says, and Martin has the faint idea that if Tim were any less handsome his manner would be awkward, but he’s just too beautiful for that to be allowed. “Your first year always sucks. But you’ll be all right.” 

“Um,” Martin says, because he does have his dignity. “Sorry, but you don’t know me?” 

“I don’t,” Tim agrees easily. “But I’ve got a good feeling.” 

Martin stares at him, and realizes abruptly that Tim might be hitting on him? Potentially? He’d never have thought, and he’s still not sure, but Tim is definitely sitting across from him with an open, relaxed posture, and he’s making deliberate eye contact, and he’s smiling, and–

“Come out for a drink tonight,” Tim says. 

“I couldn’t,” Martin says automatically, then shrugs uncomfortably. “Got to get a job first? You know, London prices.” 

“Tell you what,” Tim suggests, leaning forward a little. “I’ll buy you one.” 

“Are you–you’re not _ flirting _ with me,” Martin blurts out, just because the idea’s so implausible that he needs to get it off the table.

Tim blinks. “Apparently not a good job of it,” he says.   


“ _ Uh _ ,” Martin says. “Uh, I–well, that’s very nice, but–it’s just that I’m, um–” he tries to find the words to explain “I’m not your type” and “I may at present be too sad, which is terrible, because there’s no way I could pull someone who looks like you,” and “I need a job more than I need a date” and “oh god oh god wait am I even  _ allowed _ to say yes” all at once, and utterly fails. He’s too late, anyway, because Tim is colouring faintly and rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, like–like he hadn’t just asked a weeping acquaintance out to cheer him up or something, but like he actually cared about the answer. 

“It’s okay,” Tim says, sounding distinctly embarrassed now, and Martin says without thinking–

“–but, but sure,” and feels his entire face heat up. 

Tim’s still pink, but his eyebrows are raised. “Sure?” 

“…Sure,” Martin repeats, the heat spreading down to his stomach now, less arousal and more butterflies. 

“Great,” Tim says, and grins. “Meet me down at the place we went with Olly last week? Maybe around half-eight?” 

“Great,” Martin echoes, and startles a little when Tim touches the back of his hand, with the tips of two fingers. 

“See you tonight,” he says. “Don’t stress too much in the meantime. It really will work out.” 

“It had better,” Martin says, hyper aware of the two soft points of contact. “Um, I hope you’re actually prepared to buy the drinks, because I’m about to start lying on my CV.” 

Tim laughs. “White lie or two never hurt anyone.” He goes to stand, and makes a face when he lifts his book up from the table and a little spider corpse falls off the back cover of his book.

Martin’s braced for the “oh gross,” but Tim says “Whoops, sorry, little guy,” and more than anything else that makes the tension in Martin’s chest loosen, like something’s finally slid into place. Tim smiles at him. “See you tonight,” he says again.

“Looking forward to it,” Martin says, and thinks he actually means it.

He refreshes the page on the jobsite when Tim leaves, and whatever research job he was looking at has disappeared. Instead there’s a new listing for a receptionist at a publishing house.  
  
_ A white lie or two never hurt anyone _ , he thinks, and clicks it.    
  


*   
  


He has a great time with Tim.

They go out again, and then again, and then he makes out with Tim on a park bench, and then it turns out Tim’s actually doing an internship with the publishing house Martin has an interview with, and can give him tips for the interview, and then Tim gives him a blowjob in a cinema bathroom, and then he starts sleeping in Tim’s dorm room instead of Olly’s, and then–

On July 31st, 2013, Martin finds himself sitting at a desk in a pretty building full of light, waiting to transfer a call to the purchasing department so that he can get up and make two teas in the break room and then leave one on his boyfriend’s desk. 

_ I don’t understand how this is my life _ , he thinks, and the thought aches sweetly, like always, in the depths of his chest. 

A small movement catches his attention, and he sees that a wolf spider is trying to make a home of the dark space under his desk drawer. 

“That’s not gonna work for me, little one,” Martin says, absently sing-song, and looks for a cup to trap it under. “We’ll find you somewhere nicer to hunt, won’t we?” 

He does catch the spider, and he carefully lets it loose into the grass outside the building, right near a nice tree. He doesn’t think about it after that. 

It is the last day of July, and Martin is happy, and for a little while things are very simple. 

**Author's Note:**

> ....in case you forgot, August 2013 is when the Stranger takes Danny.


End file.
